From owner-freebsd-platforms Sun Jan 24 07:05:35 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id HAA11740 for freebsd-platforms-outgoing; Sun, 24 Jan 1999 07:05:35 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-platforms@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from bachue.usc.unal.edu.co (bachue.usc.unal.edu.co [168.176.3.20]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id HAA11734 for ; Sun, 24 Jan 1999 07:05:34 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from pfgiffun@bachue.usc.unal.edu.co) Received: from bachue.usc.unal.edu.co ([168.176.3.44]) by bachue.usc.unal.edu.co (Netscape Messaging Server 3.0) with ESMTP id AAA5038 for ; Sun, 24 Jan 1999 10:08:17 +0500 Message-ID: <36AB36F1.E61B2198@bachue.usc.unal.edu.co> Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1999 10:06:25 -0500 From: "Pedro F. Giffuni" Organization: U. Nacional de Colombia X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.05 [en] (X11; U; FreeBSD 2.2.7-RELEASE i386) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: platforms@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Anyone working on a SGI PC? Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-platforms@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org There is a comment in slashdot about Linux supporting the new SGI workstations, but since even M$-Windows works there it shouldn't be difficult to run FreeBSD: _________________ The SGI Visual Workstations 320 and 540 are Intel based SMP (Symmetrical Multiprocessing) workstations with standard PC drivers (serial, parallel, floppy, ethernet, PCI etc.) However, the similarity ends here. These machines are based on a novel UMA (Unified Memory Architecture), an architecture which provides I/O and Graphics performance significantly higher (6 times AGP 2x speed, 12 times PCI-64 speed) than what's available in common PC clones and provides much greater flexibilty (i.e. VRAM is not separate from the main RAM). The booting process isn't standard. The VisWs uses ARC-PROM rather than that ancient BIOS technology, so it doesn't need LILO and you can boot directly from any image file on various devices. The main additions to the Linux kernel consist of code to detect and initialize the SGI Cobalt and Arsenic chipset. Please note that while this enables you to boot Linux on the Visual Workstations, it does not include graphics like X11, not to mention hardware accelerated OpenGL. In other words, there's a lot of work still to be done to make Linux really shine on these machines and use all the power of the hardware. ________________ Further information on: http://visual.sgi.com/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-platforms" in the body of the message